Chris Rogers says he felt “discarded” and feared being a “one-Test wonder” after he was dropped just one match into his Australian career in 2008.
The left-handed opener scored 4 and 15 on Test debut in front of his home crowd at the WACA as Australia lost to India by 72 runs.
Rogers was dropped for the following Test in Adelaide as Matthew Hayden scored a century upon his return to the Aussie side.
“We got beaten, I got 4 and 15 and then I was kind of discarded,” he told SEN’s This Is Your Journey – thanks to Tobin Brothers.
“No one got a hundred in that Test match, it was a bit of tricky WACA wicket. They went to Adelaide and Hayden came back in, he got a hundred, there was about three or four blokes who got hundreds.
“The worst feeling about that was - and I’ve seen it happen with so many guys like Bob Quiney, Callum Ferguson … all the guys that played one or two Tests – you spend years trying to climb the mountain and then you’re just pushed off the cliff and you’re at the bottom of mountain again.
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“You look up and you go, ‘I’ve got to do it all over again’ and that’s the worst feeling.
“It takes months to deal with that and if you look at the guys who have been through those experiences, generally the next six months is pretty poor because you’re dealing with all this emotional baggage - and it was a bit the same with me.
“I just felt like that was it, I was going to be a one-Test wonder and that was all I’ll ever mount to be.”
Rogers broke back into the Australian side and finished his career with 25 Tests and five centuries next to his name.
The 44-year-old scored 2015 Test runs at an average of 42.87.